by Kenna Bardot
I couldn't draw in enough air, couldn't take what I so desperately needed. Not when my panic had control of my body. I wouldn't let them take from me. Not Hydra. Not my baby.
Not anything.
The woods were dark, shadowed with the trees, and I had no clue where I was going. Even unable to see, I still ran. I followed Hydra, stumbling through the woods like an awkward baby Catican deer.
When I finally exploded out of the trees after what seemed like hours later, I almost fell down the hill that came out of nowhere. In the center of the little valley in front of me, there stood a lonely house. Mostly abandoned, largely neglected, the only sign of life inside was the pulse of Hydra. Without a doubt, that was where she waited. Still breathing and alive.
Otherwise, I too would be dead.
There was only one way to get to the house, a lone bridge that crossed the moat-like chasm that surrounded it. Rickety, a solid wooden platform stretched across the abyss. It was the only path.
No matter what danger or surprise awaited me on the other side, I had to take it. Otherwise Hydra and I were as good as dead. Already, she'd been away from me for too long. Every moment, every minute stretching out like an eternity to strain our bond.
There'd been no sign that any other dragons had been taken, and I knew to the depths of my soul this was different, and yet somehow the same. As soon as I set foot on the grass on the other side, I made for the building. I only stopped when something rustled and groaned behind me.
Turning to stare, I watched a blond woman rise from the tall grass, hair down to hide her face and rising to stand and moving to a lever I hadn't noticed before. With a hard pull, the wooden platform retreated into the cliff face.
When she spun to face me, there was no denying the familiar pale skin, the same blond hair and face so similar to mine.
One I had never thought to see again.
Older but ravaged not by age, but by something far more sinister.
I took a step towards her. My legs threatened to collapse beneath me. “Tali?” I whispered and my voice broke into a sob as I stared into her blank grey eyes.
Everything my sister had been was gone. Her body nothing but a shell to be played with and used.
Desecrated and defiled.
I could barely see through my tears as my body trembled. I swiped them away furiously.
In the place of her throat was but a gaping hole, as if someone had grabbed her trachea and ripped it free from her body. As I watched, her eyes closed suddenly, and she collapsed to the ground. Her purpose for the moment served.
I dropped to the ground at her side, touching the tips of her hair. The unmistakable, putrid scent of death surrounded her. My hands trembled with rage, knowing without a doubt she’d been taken simply for being my sister. She wasn’t anyone’s enemy. All she had done was know me.
Her hand was cold as I wrapped mine around it, not wanting to let go. Desperately, I thought guiltily to every moment we fought. For all the wasted years between us, only for her to die because of me.
Because of me.
“I don’t want to leave you,” I whispered, even though I knew she could no longer hear me. I hoped she hadn’t suffered, but the animation of her body led me to believe the opposite.
I wanted to stay with her, protect her. But I knew that I couldn’t with Hydra a few feet away. Squaring my shoulders, I moved to stand on shaky legs when he strode out of the house.
Black eyes. Black hair.
Black soul.
He wrapped his hand around me and dragged me up the rest of the way. “Come inside, my love, we’re waiting for you.” Everything warred inside me. The need to see Hydra. The need to stay with my sister.
The need to gut him.
I fought to be free of Ashric’s grasp, which only tightened with my struggles. “You can have a longer reunion with your sister later. Since you’re so fond of being sandwiched by twins, perhaps the three of us can have our very own sandwich.”
“No!” I pulled harder against his hold. Kicking at him blindly with my legs as I tried to get away. He opened the door and threw me inside. In the corner of the mostly empty room, Hydra slept in a cage, her back bleeding where her scales were missing. I went to her, examining the injury and immediately determining that it wasn't bad enough to warrant her unconscious form. My hands grabbed the cage bars, ready to freeze them so I could shatter them easily to break her out.
"There's one for you too." I spun, rising to my feet as I glared up at him. His eyes didn't meet mine at first, too busy studying my feet and tilting his head.
"You've hurt yourself," he murmured, his voice oddly soft for what I knew of him. At odds with the way his appearance had changed in the time since I'd seen him, I swallowed down my fury. He looked ragged.
Unhinged.
His black eyes glittered even more than normal, a spark of something inside them that I instinctively knew to fear more than I'd ever feared his cold cruelty. His normally shaved face was riddled with stubble. Unkempt, paired with the fact that his hair wasn't as artfully arranged as I'd come to know. He ran his hand through it, only adding to his manic appearance. "Why would you hurt yourself? Your beautiful feet.” He bent down to touch them, and I moved out of the way. “Did you run barefoot all the way here?”
“I wouldn’t have had to run if you hadn’t taken her from me,” I whispered, staring at his hands as they reached for me again. Cautiously this time.
“Would you have come? None of them came until I took something that was theirs. That little brat you call Hydra. Her mother came for her when I brought the woman here. Her and that partner of hers. I thought everything was lost when they escaped, but no one came for me then. I had to kill your sister after that. I had to punish her because she helped that Dragon Guard escape!” His voice pitched angrily. Ringing in my ears.
What I’d been too stupid to see.
Trellis said I’d gotten out. I hadn’t understood.
She’d thought I was Tali. It would have been easy enough to confuse the two of us, with the sun shining against my back to hide the colors of my hair.
Tali had helped them escape, and they’d died, anyway. And for what?
So I would come to him?
"This is a new low. Even for you, Ashric. Using a dragon in one of your stupid games." I ignored the question, his eyes finally fixating on me intently as I spoke.
He moved toward me, and I stepped away from Hydra. Using the enticement of myself to keep him away from my vulnerable dragon. "This is not a game!" he yelled, startling me so harshly that my body jolted. He was normally all cold calculation and detached entertainment as we circled one another, and the violent response was nothing short of shocking when combined with the desperation in his eyes. "I need you. You quiet the violence. I can't take it anymore, Mireyah. I am so sick of breaking my toys and never being satisfied with them! You," he paused. A grim chuckle escaped his throat, sounding hoarse, like his very being itself was raw. "You're the only one who can take me."
"I am not a bandage for your insanity. Now let my dragon go!" I ordered, holding my ground as he took another step toward me. He didn't even seem to be aware of the movement, like his body guided him closer of its own accord.
"If it wouldn't kill you, she'd already be dead. I should be all you need!"
I scoffed, tempting fate to laugh in his face. With most men, I knew it would push him to the edge, that it would escalate an already terrible situation, but Ashric had never been most men. He'd always, always enjoyed the back and forth between us. The push and pull and the fact that I stood up to him was undoubtedly what had put me in that unfortunate position. I had to trust that it would somehow be my way out too. "All I need? I don't even want you." I sneered.
He stepped into my space, and I let him in the interest of more space for Hydra. More wiggle room if I could take him down. I just had to wait for my moment and strike at the perfect time. He touched my cheek, drawing his knuckles over it as he studied my face. "
They took you from me," he whispered, something so horribly broken in his voice that I might have cared.
If he'd been anyone else.
"I was never yours," I said back. "You know that."
"The dragons!" He drew his hand back, throwing a gesture to point at Hydra. "They got in my way. If they hadn't interfered, you would be my wife." My mouth went dry as it dropped open, and I stared up at him with wide eyes.
My lip trembled. "The dragons," I whispered, feeling my heart stall in my chest. I'd known it the moment he talked about Hydra’s mother, but I still couldn’t make sense of such a pointless act. "Why?"
"They took you from me!" he shouted again, and I took a small step back from him as I blinked in shock.
"They were dragons," I said, putting every ounce of feeling I had into the words. Tears stung my eyes as I thought of the horrible reality that they'd died for nothing. For such a pointless vendetta. "The Core Gods never would have given me to you! You are unsuitable as a husband! You let your bear flay me open in your desperation to win the right to fuck me!"
He stared down at me, his face twisted as if the memory pained him. “I didn’t just want the right to fuck you. I want you. I even gave you a gift, and you just threw it away. It suits you far more than that ugly thing across your forehead.” Ashric stepped forward, closing the slight gap between us with a sudden ferocity that had me raising my hand to defend myself. Frost tickled my fingertips, and he narrowed his eyes on it before he glanced over his shoulder.
Tali, reanimated, stepped in through the open door, a knife sparkling in the faint light streaming in from the moons in the sky. She opened the cage door, standing just outside it and waiting like a perfectly still sentry for the command from her master. "I have great interest in keeping your dragon alive, but if you fight me, I might cut off pieces of her while she sleeps off the sleeping draught I gave her."
“Tali, please, no,” I begged her. Those eyes that had so many times seen fault in me looked at me with barely disguised frustration were nothing but blank.
I froze in place, staring around Ashric's bulk as I considered my options. I forced myself to allow his hands to touch me. To brush against the stone on my head. “You sent the broken circlet.”
He ran a thumb down the side of my face. “You didn’t like it. Why didn’t you like it?” I refused to look at him, refused to take my eyes off of Hydra even as my body convulsed under his touch. The same hands that stroked my face had killed my sister. Kimba and Trellis. Madi and Leone. A contented sigh made the tension seep from his body. I finally glanced up at him, watching some of the madness in his face fade as he stared down at me in wonder.
"You're insane," I whispered, finally seeing the truth. Ashric had always walked the line, but it wasn't unheard of for a Tovenaar to be cruel.
Whatever had happened to him, it had taken away the last vestiges of sanity that he clung to.
I stared out the glass wall beside me, trying to ignore his touch and grateful for the coverage that my uniform provided. His hands were limited to my face, my hair, my hands. At least, they would be until he moved to strip me of my clothing.
He leaned down, touching his lips to the corner of my mouth so softly, almost reverently, that it was barely a whisper of a touch. Even still, I flinched back as a wave of nausea rolled through me. Ashric's touch had always turned my stomach, but it was infinitely worse knowing all he’d done.
The back of his hand connected with the side of my face, turning my head to the side sharply as the skin welled with heat. A human might have broken, as a Goddess I only bled. “Fuck you,” I hissed.
His enraged face filled my vision, grasping my head in both hands. As he crashed my head back against the wall, blinding pain made the world disappear.
Until there was nothing left.
✽✽✽
Charolais
Tanith and I escorted the prisoner between us, and she didn't bother to struggle as we approached the boundary to the Unwanted Lands. Outside them, where the Springens waited to escort us all home, the land of Godsfell was lush and green, with wildflowers growing in the clearing.
The exact point of the boundary would have been clear, even if you couldn't feel it pulsing like a beacon.
Because everything beyond it lay dead. A wasteland of pure death, where only the strongest and most stubborn of humanity could survive. A barren expanse of deadly rocks and emptiness, the chasm that stretched over the nothingness stopped anyone who wanted to enter.
If ever such a fool existed.
But more, it kept anyone who tried to escape inside.
"I don't want to go," the Goddess begged Tanith, tears streaking down a face already devastated by grief. Her begging was futile, because we didn't determine her fate. We didn't decide if her crimes were horrific enough to warrant outright banishment from Demiorgo. We merely delivered her to her punishment. That was all.
Luckily for her, the Gods who decided her fate had determined she just needed a proper scare. But a foray into the land of the Unwanted was enough to turn anyone into an upstanding citizen.
"I won't do it again. I promise, please," she begged as we each took one of her arms. We stepped up to the line in the tall grass where everything died. The boundary pulsed at my front as I took a deep breath, mentally preparing myself for the pain that would come with walking into the place I didn't belong. I spent time inside that boundary daily, and even with pain as my friend, suffering through that agonizing discomfort still felt like a blow to the gut.
Like being pinched between two rocks and stretched apart at the seams all at once. Like the place ripped your very cells apart.
Looking over at Tanith, I waited for her nod before we dragged the Goddess between us over the line. She went rigid immediately, having not had the years of preparation like we did.
Like Mireyah underwent to prepare for her own duty. As part of the Dragon Guard, she would be part of the very magic that held the boundary together. The same magic that kept the Unwanted from escaping their pit. I couldn't imagine what it would be like to be that close to the very source, to ride a dragon as they breathed their fire or their ice, to combine and craft the magic of the Unwanted Lands.
We pulled the shaking Goddess further within the boundary, and I pushed through the pinching in my gut. The further inside the boundary we traveled, the more that discomfort shifted to pain. Standing outside the mouth of the pit was the worst pain I'd ever experienced.
Far worse than nearly having my leg severed in the final Sire Trial. It made me look back and think myself weak, that I hadn't been able to push through that pain more effectively and rescue Mireyah from the dragons and the other men who wanted to claim her for themselves. It hadn't mattered in the end. The hit to my pride could never matter, not when Mireyah was our wife.
“She’s supposed to be here today,” I told Tanith. “She should just be coming in. Are you okay with me going to check on her?”
Tanith chuckled, her face twisted into a grimace, and I knew she was waiting for the discomfort to subside. “Go ahead, I can hold it down here for a while. I like your wife. She suits you, oddly enough.”
I left her to supervise our charge, since she wouldn’t be able to function during her time within the boundary and posed no risk. I walked over to where the Dragon Guard usually were. Mireyah had told me she was working with Zephyr Majele, and while it was disturbing that she was working with a man, it would be hypocritical to be angry over it when she had made her point so with Tanith.
I spotted the Majele but saw the panicked light in his eyes. I looked around and saw no sign of Mireyah anywhere. “Zephyr, where’s Mireyah?”
"I just received a message from the Springen. Her guard says she wasn’t in the station when he went to pick her up. They were supposed to bring her to the edge of the Unwanted Lands, where I would take her inside slowly.”
“Have they looked for her at home?” But I already felt it, the telltale signs that something was wrong. Pulsing ove
r the pain and discomfort I felt in the Unwanted lands and through our bond.
“They’re on their way there now.” I didn’t wait to hear anything else. I didn’t care if going away then and there would get me removed from my duty as I walked beyond the boundary to the outside and immediately stepped up to one of the Springen. "Take me home. Directly home. Not to a station. My wife and her baby dragon are missing," I ordered. He looked over to the other Springen, a woman who nodded at him to do as I said.
A missing dragon and member of the Dragon Guard in a time where pairs seemed prone to turning up dead, there wasn't a God on Demiorgo who wouldn't take that seriously.
I arrived outside the house just as a Dragon Guard was walking up to it. “Have you found her?”
He shook his head and opened his mouth to speak just as the front door opened and the rest of us spilled out of the house. “I take it Mireyah’s not inside?”
“No, but her boots are.”
We looked at the guard. “She wasn’t in the station. So I’ve just come to see if she was here. This was where I dropped her off,” he said.
Shep sent him a fulminating look. “And you just left her alone?”
“She insisted,” he whispered, running a palm over his face. His guilt was tangible. That he might have made a choice that led to Mireyah being harmed something I knew he regretted deeply, but I heard nothing more as I walked into the house and straight out the back door. The sight of blood by the outside door of Hydra’s house filled me with terror.
"Mireyah!" I roared. The others followed behind me, traipsing through the grass as my worry spread to them.
"She must have followed Hydra," Tate muttered as he found a pile of Hydra’s scales along with more blood.
"Over there!" Shep pointed to the spot in the woods where the brush was trampled. Where a person had clearly run through the forest in a hurry. Ryle took a few steps into the path the person had made, bending down and lifting his bloodied fingers into the moonlight. Even in the darkened woods, there was no disguising the shine of her blood along the path.
